“The knock on effect if you have eye witnesses is the longer between them seeing and incident and describing it in court to a jury, the greater the opportunity for the defence to attack it.

“You are undermining the credibility of witnesses by introducing a delay. If someone is remanded in custody then the taxpayer is paying - and it is not cheap.”

Penelope Gibbs, director of Transform Justice, said delays in the system are causing an “attrition of witnesses”.

“If there are so many fewer cases, the system failures should be radically going down,” she said.“These are systemic problems.

“It is terrible for victims because it is a stressful experience for any witness, defence or prosecution, to come to court and give evidence.

“You are going to have to psych yourself up to relive that experience. People are stressed by cross examination and courts. People take time off work and are often having to travel significant distances.

“In the case of defence witnesses they can be significantly out of pocket by coming to court.

“What you get is attrition of witnesses. It undermines trust in the whole system.”

As waiting times rise, the number of sitting magistrates in Norfolk has fallen from almost 350 to fewer than 200.

Jon Collins, chief executive of the Magistrates Association of England and Wales, said there are “significant shortages” due to a previous recruitment freeze.

“We have known the number of magistrates have been declining rapidly and they have fallen considerably before this,” he said. “Overall they have fallen by nearly half over the last decade.

“We are still looking to recruit 8,000 or so but I believe we need more than that. The issue at the moment is there is not enough people interested in doing it.”

Mr Spence added the shortage of judges has become a “recruitment crisis”.

“It is absurd we have fewer cases going through the court but it take so much longer to hear them,” he said. “It either indicates gross inefficiency or insufficient manpower.”

A spokesman for Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service claimed “we have a world leading justice system”.

They added: “We are working together across the criminal justice system to ensure the smooth running of our courts, as well as using new technology and initiatives to reduce delays.

“Performance levels are continually kept under close review to ensure changes in demands are met.”

“It prolonged the suffering for us” - rapist delays justice by two years

Anthony Holloway was jailed for 13 years at Norwich Crown Court in May last year, with another five years on licence.

He raped a 60-year-old woman who has dementia at her Sprowston home in December 2015 - but the 53-year old was not jailed for two and half years because of long court delays.

When the case finally went to trial in September 2017, Holloway lied to the court, stating his uncle had died. The trial was stopped and the sentencing was then further delayed.

The son and his wife were faced with the prospect of having to give evidence for a second time in Holloway’s new trial.

But the rapist changed his plea to guilty for the charge of sexual activity with a person with a mental disorder impeding choice, meaning the trial did not have to go ahead. He then delayed proceedings again by trying to change his plea to not guilty.

That meant more court hearings had to be held.

The victim’s son said: “The let-downs after (the trial) became almost comedic. They just couldn’t get justice for my mum. It was very upsetting. We felt completely let down. It prolonged the suffering for us.”